Not a day has gone by recently without some major banking or business disaster or other being reported by the press. The "credit crunch", we are told, will cost many jobs, hurt homeowners and impact badly on people's health and wellbeing. One point has been missed in the reporting of all of this - the prison population is likely to continue to rise as well.

There is no correlation between crime rates and imprisonment rates. Scotland and Finland for example, are of a similar size and have similar crime rates. Yet Scotland's imprisonment rate (measured per 100,000 of the population) is nearly three times that of Finland. Interestingly, the countries with the highest and most visible inequalities among their people - the USA, Russia, South Africa - have the world's highest imprisonment rates.

Poverty does not lead to high crime rates, although it does lead to high levels of criminalization. However it would seem that inequality contributes to high imprisonment rates, and a more criminal justice-orientated response to what are often social problems.

The UK, along with Spain, has the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe already. Will the inevitable fallout of the financial crisis impact on this further? The inequalities in our society are likely to become more apparent - people losing their jobs and homes on any significant scale is going to be visible. That could serve to exacerbate the current trend towards mass incarceration.

This means one thing - now is not the time to be defeatist on the issue of criminal justice reform. In the face of our current reality it is more important than ever to continue to make the case for communities having the power and opportunity to take responsibility for their own children and safety. The criminal justice response should not be the default one - but in the current climate the danger is that the system shall mechanically continue to create more criminals.